The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [183]
He broke out again just as violently when I told him of my meeting with Sethos, and for a time his profane ejaculations prevented a reasoned discussion. Ramses (who did not have his father’s prejudices against the Master Criminal) was the first to realize the import of that meeting.
“Do you mean there is a complete photographic record after all?” he demanded. “Surely not of the mummy, though. How would he manage that?”
“I am sure I do not know,” I replied. “But he told me that he—or rather, he and Sir Edward—had managed it. It is some small consolation, is it not, to know that the record exists? And David’s copy of the shrine panel and door in the corridor may be the only record of those objects.”
Emerson shot me a guilty look. “Now, Peabody, I don’t know where you got the idea—”
“It was on your desk, Emerson,” I replied firmly if not altogether truthfully. “Anyhow, I knew you were up to something that morning you went early to the Valley with the children. You know you will never be able to make it public, don’t you? You had no business doing such a thing.”
Emerson said, “Hmph.”
“A good many of our activities in that tomb can’t be made public,” Ramses remarked. “Not if we ever want to work in Egypt again.”
Emerson deemed it advisable to change the subject. “Curse it, Amelia, why didn’t you tell me this earlier? We might have caught the bas—the villain!”
“I doubt that,” said Nefret. Laughter brightened her eyes and her voice. “Anyhow, Professor, would you really have handed him over to the authorities after he saved Aunt Amelia?”
Emerson considered the question. “I would much rather have had the satisfaction of beating the rascal to a pulp—and forcing him to return the objects he stole from the tomb. Did he tell you what they were, Peabody?”
I shook my head, and Ramses said thoughtfully, “We may be able to hazard a reasonable guess by comparing what is now in the burial chamber with the list I made after my first visit.”
“Ned will be able to do the same, won’t he?” I asked.
“Possibly,” said Ramses. “But I daresay his memory is not quite as accurate as mine.”
False modesty is not a quality from which Ramses suffers. Since the statement was undoubtedly true, no one contradicted him.
“No suspicion will attach to the photographer,” Ramses went on. “There have been literally dozens of people in and out of that tomb over the past few days, including Mr. Davis’s workers. We may owe Sethos a debt of gratitude after all, for preserving objects that would have been damaged or stolen by less skillful thieves. I wouldn’t be surprised if certain objects turn up in the antiquities market.”
This indeed proved to be the case. It was Howard Carter who was shown the bits of gold and fragments of jewelry by a man of Luxor. The fellow offered them to Mr. Davis for four hundred pounds and a promise of immunity. Mr. Davis, I was told, was deeply wounded by the disloyalty of his workmen.
From Manuscript H
“What do you suppose the Professor will do now?” David asked.
It was the first time they had had a chance for a private conference since the debacle over Davis’s tomb. For reasons known only to her, Nefret had decided to make it something of a celebration. She had given up pretending she liked whiskey, but there was a bottle of wine and some of Fatima’s sugar cakes. They met in Ramses’s room, since Horus had taken possession of Nefret’s bed and refused to let either of the men into the room.
Stretched out in his favorite chair, his feet on a low chest, Ramses shrugged. “He won’t tell us until he’s damned good and ready. But I can hazard a guess, I think. He’ll let us finish our copying at the Seti temple while he and Mother and Nefret go off selecting another site for next year.”
“Why me?” Nefret demanded. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, with the silk skirts of her blue robe spread around her, like a water nymph in a pool.